Italy's PM faces confidence vote

Victory would deal a major blow to former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, but could leave Italy more frail than ever.

Letta called vote of confidence after Berlusconi ordered his ministers to leave government in protest at rise in VAT [Reuters]

Italy's Prime Minister Enrico Letta has appealed for his government's survival ahead of a crucial vote of confidence in parliament amid a divisive split in Silvio Berlusconi's party that could at least temporarily save his fragile ruling coalition.

In a speech to the Senate before Wednesday's vote, Letta hailed his five-month-old government's successes and outlined his agenda to revive Italy's moribund economy and turnaround its record unemployment, as he warned legislators that Italy "runs a risk, a fatal risk" depending on the choices they make.

Italians are crying out that they cannot take any more blood and arena, with politicians who slit each other's throats and then nothing changes

Enrico Letta, Italian prime minister

"Italy runs a risk that could be a fatal risk. Seizing this moment or not depends on us, on a yes or a no," Letta said in his address to the Senate.

Letta's survival hinges on rebels within Berlusconi's centre-right People of Freedom party (PDL), who are considering splitting from the media mogul after he called time on the government and pulled his ministers from the cabinet.

"Italians are crying out that they cannot take any more blood and arena, with politicians who slit each other's throats and then nothing changes," said Letta, who must clinch the vote to defeat Berlusconi, a former prime minister, and keep his coalition government alive.

The billionaire tycoon has called for his party to vote against the motion of confidence in the government.

"Despite the risks, I have decided to put an end to the Letta government," Berlusconi said in a letter to Tempi magazine published Tuesday, in which he blamed Letta and Italy's president for not protecting him from his legal woes.

But he was left on the back foot on the eve of the vote after his chief protege - Interior Minister Angelino Alfano - said he was "firmly convinced that our party as a whole should vote confidence".

The confidence vote will be held after Letta's address, followed later in the day by a vote in the Chamber of Deputies lower house.

Even if he clinches Wednesday's vote, analysts have warned that his government - which was put together after a February election ended in a lengthy deadlock - will necessarily be weaker with Berlusconi in opposition.

If he loses the vote, President Napolitano will be forced to try and cobble together a new government or send the country back to the polls, a move which political observers agree risks ending in yet another stalemate.

"Italians are used to this kind of instability," Mattia Guidi, a Political Science Researcher told Al Jazeera.

'Traitors'

Tensions within the country's uneasy coalition have spiked since Italy's top court upheld a tax fraud conviction against Berlusconi in August and calls from his allies for a pardon from President Giorgio Napolitano fell on deaf ears.

"In a democratic state, all sentences must be respected," Letta told lawmakers in the Senate in a clear reference to his rival's legal woes.

Despite fears that political instability could undermine efforts by the eurozone's third-largest economy to rein in its budget deficit, the three-time former premier has called for fresh elections.

Analysts warn that even if Letta clinches Wednesday's vote, his government will be weaker with Berlusconi in opposition

Senior party figures have said 40 PDL senators are ready to vote for the government, which would hand Letta the overall majority he needs.

The premier holds a comfortable majority in the lower house but is only sure of 137 votes from his own Democratic Party (PD) and centrist allies in the Senate - meaning he needs at least 24 extra to secure the 161-seat majority there.

The jobless rate has also returned to a record high of 12.2 percent, with youth unemployment also at its highest ever level of 40.1 percent.

If those Berlusconi slams as "traitors" do decide to vote pro-Letta, it not only risks tearing apart a party that has dominated the political scene since the early 1990s but would leave the 77-year-old increasingly friendless.

A Senate committee on Friday will decide if he should be expelled from parliament under a new law aimed at cleaning up Italian politics.

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